Spectral Functions and rf Response of Ultracold Fermionic Atoms

We present a calculation of the spectral functions and the associated rf response of ultracold fermionic atoms near a Feshbach resonance. The single particle spectra are peaked at energies that can be modeled by a modified BCS dispersion. However, even at very low temperatures their width is comparable to their energy, except for a small region around the dispersion minimum. The structure of the excitation spectrum of the unitary gas at infinite scattering length agrees with recent momentum-resolved rf spectra near the critical temperature. A detailed comparison is made with momentum integrated, locally resolved rf spectra of the unitary gas at arbitrary temperatures and shows very good agreement between theory and experiment. The pair size defined from the width of these spectra is found to coincide with that obtained from the leading gradient corrections to the effective field theory of the superfluid.Comment: 18 pages, 7 figures, revtex 4, references update

Nearly Perfect Fluidity: From Cold Atomic Gases to Hot Quark Gluon Plasmas

Shear viscosity is a measure of the amount of dissipation in a simple fluid. In kinetic theory shear viscosity is related to the rate of momentum transport by quasi-particles, and the uncertainty relation suggests that the ratio of shear viscosity eta to entropy density s in units of hbar/k_B is bounded by a constant. Here, hbar is Planck's constant and k_B is Boltzmann's constant. A specific bound has been proposed on the basis of string theory where, for a large class of theories, one can show that eta/s is greater or equal to hbar/(4 pi k_B). We will refer to a fluid that saturates the string theory bound as a perfect fluid. In this review we summarize theoretical and experimental information on the properties of the three main classes of quantum fluids that are known to have values of eta/s that are smaller than hbar/k_B. These fluids are strongly coupled Bose fluids, in particular liquid helium, strongly correlated ultracold Fermi gases, and the quark gluon plasma. We discuss the main theoretical approaches to transport properties of these fluids: kinetic theory, numerical simulations based on linear response theory, and holographic dualities. We also summarize the experimental situation, in particular with regard to the observation of hydrodynamic behavior in ultracold Fermi gases and the quark gluon plasma.Comment: 76 pages, 11 figures, review article, extensive revision